Sensex closes 473 points higher at 72,382, ending a four-day slide

The Sensex closed on Monday at 72,382.47, up 472.77 points, or 0.66 percent, and the Nifty closed at 22,555.75, up 133.80 points, or 0.60 percent. The close snapped a four-day losing streak and ended an eight-week slide, the longest weekly losing run in 25 years.

The index had already been higher at the open. At 9:25 a.m. the Sensex was up 453 points at 72,362.74. It did not stay there. During the session it rose as much as 722.23 points, or 1 percent, to 72,631.93, then gave back about 250 points into the close. The finish at 72,382.47 is only about 20 points above the level marked in the first half hour. The day's range was the news. The close was a retracement of a rally, not a straight climb.

Monday's trade also reopened a market that had been shut on Friday for Gandhi Jayanti. The previous close, on 1 October, was 71,909.70 on the Sensex and 22,421.95 on the Nifty. That week had cost the Nifty 3.1 percent and the Sensex 2.7 percent, the eighth straight weekly loss. From the start of that run the Nifty had fallen about 8.7 percent and the Sensex about 8.4 percent. Monday did not repair that. A 473-point rise on a base of 71,910 is a 0.66 percent bounce after an 8 percent drawdown.

ITC led the Sensex gainers. Eternal, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Adani Ports, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Larsen and Toubro, Titan, NTPC, Maruti, Axis Bank and Power Grid were also higher. HCL Tech and Max Health were among the losers. More than 30 of the Nifty 50 stocks closed up. The mid-cap and small-cap indices each rose about 0.5 percent. The Bank Nifty rose about 0.5 percent, led by AU Small Finance Bank and Federal Bank.

Dealers tied the bounce to a softer US jobs print, which came in under the 90,000 figure markets had been using, and to a slight easing in crude after the G7 moved toward a coordinated stock release. Both are outside inputs. Neither has a number yet that changes the Indian inflation file. Brent was still near $101 when the RBI committee sat down on Monday morning. A jobs miss in the United States reduces the odds of another aggressive Fed rise at the October meeting. It does not cut the diesel price in Mumbai.

The two dates in front of the market this week are Wednesday's RBI decision and a GST Council meeting the same day. The repo rate is 5.25 percent. Bank of Baroda expects a hold. Union Bank of India expects a 25 basis point rise, the first increase since February 2023. A hold would fit Monday's tape. A rise would ask the same tape to reprice a cutting cycle that markets had treated as finished only in the sense that cuts had stopped, not in the sense that hikes had started.

Foreign flows are the other open item. On Wednesday of the previous week, foreign portfolio investors had sold Rs 10,148 crore of shares. One Monday bounce does not say whether that selling has paused. The eight-week run was not a single story. It was oil back above $100, a rupee past 96, and a steady bid for dollars out of Indian equities. Monday's gainers were a mix of domestic defensives, ITC among them, and rate-sensitive financials. That mix is what a market looks like when traders are willing to own India for a day and not yet willing to own the exporters.

The level that matters into Wednesday is the one the Sensex failed to hold. At 72,631.93 the index was 722 points up on the day. It closed 250 points below that print. If the RBI raises rates, that gap is the first place selling will test. If it holds, the question is whether 72,382 becomes a base or a one-day close after a holiday weekend. The eight-week loss is still on the chart either way.